Foggy Bottom

Quick Answer

Foggy Bottom sits south of West End and east of Rock Creek. George Washington University, the State Department and the Kennedy Center are all inside it. DC lists about 210 row houses here, most between 24th and 26th Streets in the historic district. The rest of the housing is mostly condominium and cooperative buildings. The institutions take up most of the land.

How We Calculate $/sqft

$/sqft is calculated on above-grade finished square footage, the standard used by DC appraisers, MLS systems, and most market participants. Properties with finished below-grade space (English basements, rental units) carry that square footage as additive value, but appraisers typically apply a discount of 50 to 75 cents on the dollar relative to above-grade space. Blending the two into a single $/sqft figure would make a home with a finished basement look cheaper than it is and obscure the real comparison. When a property has significant finished below-grade square footage, both metrics are presented in context so you understand the full picture before the appraiser does.

Row houses here change hands a few times a year. 5 closed in the last 12 months, at a median of $920K and 54 days on market. About 87 single-family row houses sold in the last ten years.

With so few sales, comps for a Foggy Bottom row house often come from Georgetown and West End as well. The Georgetown median is $1.9M. Match the houses on era, size and basement before comparing prices.

Most of the row houses sit inside the historic district, where exterior changes and new construction go through DC's historic preservation review. About three in ten were built after 1940, including the houses on Queen Annes Lane, built from 1960 to 1962. The rest are recorded as built in 1939 or earlier.

Three in ten Foggy Bottom row houses went up after 1940, on blocks that look Victorian.

DC lists about 210 row houses in Foggy Bottom. About 200 are single-family houses, and the figures here are for them; the other 13 are recorded as converted to two units. About half are recorded as built in 1900 or earlier. The city enters 1900 when it lacks the true year. About one in six went up between 1901 and 1939. The typical house has about 1,400 square feet on a lot under 1,000. Fewer than half have a basement.

The rest came later, most in the 1950s and 1960s. Queen Annes Lane dates to 1960 to 1962 and shares a historic district with 1880s rows. Only 13 single-family houses sold here in two years, so a median mixes both eras.

Here is what I do with that. I sort the comps by era first: an 1880s house against 1880s houses, a 1960 house against its own row. Then I match size and the basement. When Foggy Bottom runs short, I add matching Georgetown sales. I ask the seller in writing what was rebuilt and how the lower level is used.

Two houses on one block can be eighty years apart, and the price has to say so.

From the Record

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  In 1765 Jacob Funk bought 130 acres roughly bounded by present-day 19th, 24th and H Streets and the Potomac. He laid out a town called Hamburgh in 1771 and divided it into 234 lots. The origin of the name Foggy Bottom is uncertain: the marshy low ground by the river, or river fog mixed with industrial smoke.

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  By the 19th century, Foggy Bottom had transformed into a manufacturing hub with breweries, glass factories, and the Washington Gas Light Company.

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  George Washington University moved to Foggy Bottom in 1912. Over the following decades it grew to more than 40 acres east of 23rd Street.

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  The State Department moved into what is now the Harry S Truman Building, at 2201 C Street NW, in 1947. The building went up from 1939 to 1941 for the War Department and took Truman's name in 2000. Ground was broken for the Kennedy Center in 1964, and it opened on the river in 1971.